Beyond the Dark

by Angela Knight

  She flung herself back against his heat, still kissing him wildly. His naked body was perfect beneath her hands, every muscle balanced, every inch of skin smooth and tanned. His hindquarters had to be squeezed, his shoulders stroked and admired. She climbed him with one leg, her mons on fire to rub against him. His cock was a tower of hardness between its lips, shuddering with his heartbeat, welling up with her new favorite wine. Her sexual channel closed convulsively on itself.

  “Inside me,” she cried, panicked that he would not get there soon enough.

  But his haste was as great as hers. He lifted her, speared her, in and in and in with that smooth, thick flesh. For a moment, she thought he might be too much; he stretched her so. In the end, though, they fit together like they’d been born to it. He groaned when her legs wrapped around him with all their strength. Fluid shot inside her—not seed, for he hardened even more as it came. It burned like his kiss did, overflowing her pussy, making its tissues itch and swell until she cried out.

  When she ground her hips against him, it just increased.

  He must have felt the same torment, because he tore away to gulp for air.

  “I don’t know…what’s happening to me,” he panted. “I don’t know what my body’s doing.”

  She didn’t either, but she couldn’t speak. She grabbed his shoulder-length hair and pulled him back to kiss her again. He gave in to it, gave in to her. He was making noises like he couldn’t comprehend how good this felt. Maddened for more, they fell together onto her bed.

  “Fuck me,” she said, the need for friction on that itching driving her mad. “Gods, do it now.”

  He did it in long, hard-driving strokes that drew her pleasure from her in keening wails. A dozen were enough to fling her over. She came with a cry she could not hold back, the orgasm clamping down on her like a fist.

  “More,” she gasped even as she felt him explode. She groaned her dismay, her neck arching up with continued lust. It was all she could do not to pierce his back with her fingernails.

  “It’s all right,” he said, catching his breath and starting up again. “I need more, too.”

  He did need more. He was grunting with the astounding force of his thrusts, using all his might to get deep inside. The fucking was so good, so hard, like nothing any man had ever done to her. His speed was inhuman, his narrow hips practically a blur. As caught up as she was, he nipped the muscle of her shoulder and sent her over again.

  The itch became a pleasure of rare brilliance.

  “I’m letting go,” he warned. “I’m letting go and giving you all of it.”

  He pushed her knee up and spread her wider. She couldn’t restrain herself, but thankfully neither could he. They were animals, snarling out their enjoyment and clawing each other’s backs. She smelled his blood and her own. When the bed collapsed beneath his exertions, all she did was cling harder. She came too many times to count, and he joined her no less than six.

  He pulled out, once, long enough to kiss a burning path down her front, long enough to take a firm hold on her thighs, wrest them over his shoulders, and suck her where she felt it most. Her bud of pleasure felt three times its normal size, and his tongue was as swift and forceful as the rest of him.

  She screamed at the intensity of that release.

  A heartbeat after she spasmed, he had her on his cock again, over his lap and riding him as fast and hard as he could pull her down.

  None of these gyrations seemed to ease his need. He emptied into her a seventh time, his hips holding high and hard, after which he finally wrenched himself away from her.

  The loss was so sudden and unexpected, Tou had to cup herself between the legs. He, however, did not see that.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, rolling onto his back with his arm flung across his eyes. “I can’t make myself stop. I’ve never wanted anyone this badly.”

  “Shh.” She stroked his heaving chest, wondering how best to coax him back. He moaned when she kissed his nipples, and louder when she bent to lick a line up his cock. He had not softened, for which she could only be glad. She was hungry still, the throb as strong as ever between her thighs. “I’m not like your other women, Memnon. You can’t want this too much for me.”

  “Tou.” His buttocks tightened as she swept her tongue around his tip. “I need—Tou, do you have oil?”

  She lifted her head, her hand gripping the thick root of him. Something more was wrong than his ill-placed concern for her. His legs scissored restlessly on the sheets, his face flushed from more than arousal or exertion.

  “What is it?” she asked. “What do you wish?”

  The flags in his cheeks darkened. “I itch…back there. I don’t think I can take not being rubbed much longer.”

  She laughed, touched by his delicate choice of words. “There’s no need to be shy with me. I’ve seen everything—more than once.”

  Her words seemed to arouse him. He squirmed again, more intensely. “You could use a dildo if you don’t want to touch me. I just…need something.”

  She kissed his hip and pushed herself from the ruins of the bed, smiling. If he was itching the way she had, she understood perfectly. “I’ll be right back, and don’t you worry about what I do or don’t want to touch.”

  HE’D gone to some paradise for the sexually insane. He could hardly endure lying there, waiting, while she searched through a cabinet. When she found the oil, she spun the bottle in the air and grinned at him.

  “Roll over,” she said, catching the stoppered flask neatly. “I want you on that pretty belly and cock of yours.”

  “Tou—”

  “You will obey me. I am your queen.”

  He could not match her humor. His skin felt like tiny lightning bolts were streaking over it. He rolled over, careful of his extremely swollen parts. Though he was leery of what she intended, his eagerness would not allow him to call a halt.

  She showed no signs of second thoughts. She dripped warm oil between his buttocks, rubbing it into his muscles with those powerful hands of hers. He moaned her name, then simply gasped. Two of her long fingers were sliding into him.

  He’d never been stroked there, and the pleasure was shattering, strong tingles of sensation reaching into him more deeply than mere fingers could.

  “Relax,” she coaxed huskily. “There’s a spot in here most men like to have caressed.”

  He could feel it. It was the epicenter of his torturous itch. “A little farther,” he urged, then, “Oh, yes, there.”

  “You’re swollen,” she said as she probed the perfect, devastating spot. “More than you should be. Are you sure this doesn’t hurt?”

  Memnon’s eyes were threatening to cross.

  “It’s perfect,” he panted. “Perfect. Perfect. Oh, gods.” His hips heaved backward, trying to impale himself harder. “Oh, gods, I need to be inside you now.”

  His eyes were hot, tearing up from the suddenly blinding lamps. He actually whimpered when she pulled her hand from him.

  “I’m getting the dildo,” she said. “I’ll need the extra reach if you’re inside me.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said once she was back again, though he was already climbing over her. “I shouldn’t be making you do this.”

  When she laughed, he was too crazed to take offense.

  “You promised,” she reminded him. “You said if I took you, I wouldn’t need another man for a long, long time. Do you really think my needs are near exhausted?”

  It was the perfect thing to say, the perfect thing to free him—especially since she was sliding the ivory dildo into him in synchrony with him sliding into her. Her sheath was hot enough to burn, her inner muscles rippling over him greedily. His itch increased as her cream flowed and painted him.

  Despite how much he wanted to grind into motion, he couldn’t quell one last worry at hurting her.

  “Take me,” she said, her voice breathy with desire, her fingers tightening on his hips. “However you need to. You can’t want this more tha
n I do.”

  He hadn’t thought their lust could build, hadn’t known any living being could need so much. The earth should have shaken with the force of his thrusts, and still he couldn’t get enough. The way she worked the ivory phallus made him want to scream. It hit that magic spot with every motion, the pleasure of it radiating from back to front in increasing waves.

  More, was all he could think. More and more and more.

  What was happening was tied together by a dreamlike logic: his swollen glands, the fluid that had poured from his throat and cock, the heightening of their desires. Climax after climax wracked their bodies without satiating them. They were drunk on each other and starving for another sip. When the crest of his cock seemed to split open and try to reach farther, some corner of his mind could only say, of course.

  Of course he had to bind her to him. Of course he had to lock the source of his maleness into her womb. No matter that it felt like fire was searing his penis, whatever unknown appendage was uncoiling from his glans was doing exactly what it needed to. It stretched into her, probing, reaching, each brush against her velvet sheath a small climax. The snakelike thing was jangling like one raw nerve…and then it found a spot inside her to snug onto that had both their eyes squeezing shut with unutterable bliss.

  He’d been waiting all his life to feel this without even knowing it.

  “Mem,” she gasped, shuddering around him. “The gods have blessed you as strangely as they did me.”

  His throat was too tight to speak. He kissed her, his shaft locked deep inside her. He couldn’t move, didn’t want to, and neither did she. They strained closer, closer while the slender length of flesh that bound them began to vibrate like a plucked sistrum. That pleasure was so sharp, it seemed impossible for human bodies to contain.

  They could not make a noise when they exploded into ecstasy; they didn’t have the breath for it. Memnon’s balls convulsed like they’d been slapped, propelling the last of his seed in one hot, thick rush. Tou came a second later, her amazing inner muscles sucking in every drop.

  They shook long enough for the world to destroy itself and reform.

  When the wild glory finished, when it melted golden and sweet, they could breathe again. Then their clinging limbs could relax. Memnon had no strength left. He dissolved on her, her hair a tangled silk pillow. He must have been heavy, but one of her hands slid to the back of his neck, limply holding him where he was. He kissed her ear, murmured her name. Sleep rolled up him in a long, inexorable wave.

  I’m keeping her, he thought as it swallowed him. From this night forward, Hhamoun’s queen is mine.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Tou hated the memories of what had been done to her as a girl as much as she’d hated the acts themselves. It galled her that no matter how many decades passed, nightmares could grip her sleep in their cold, dark fist. Nightmares were all they were, but she loathed the weakness they implied. The chance that she might have one was the reason she never let her harem spend the night with her. She was their queen. If they thought her in need of comfort, much of the awe in which they held her would be undercut. She wouldn’t have that. Couldn’t.

  Which meant she’d have to live with the dream’s refusal to let go tonight.

  Her body tried to shudder her out of it, but her demons kept coming. She struck at them, screamed for them to die…and then two big, warm hands closed on her shoulders, lifted her off the mattress, and shook her awake.

  “Tou,” he said. “Love, wake up.”

  She blinked at Memnon’s worried face, cold sweat from the nightmare trickling down her back. One alabaster lamp still glowed in her belowground chamber, the one on the inlaid table nearest her bed. The rest of the room was dark enough to make the jackal-headed Lord of Darkness feel at home. Like a sarcophagus, she thought, then pressed a palm to her stinging cheek.

  “You slapped me,” she said, amazed.

  “I couldn’t wake you. You were thrashing and crying out—like a soldier who returns in his mind to an old battle. Tell me, love, what battle troubles your sleep?”

  That was the second time he’d called her “love” since he’d woken her. As uneasy with the endearment as she was with the dream, she pulled her knees to her chest. She was still naked, still sticky from their lovemaking. Her womb nearly purred as those memories flooded back. She wanted him with a strength that had another ribbon of unease uncurling in her breast.

  “You may not want to hear of this particular battle.”

  He squeezed her knee, one more liberty to add to the rest. “Sometimes you can purge the memories by sharing them.”

  “Would that I could.” She raked back her hair, regarding him regarding her. His rugged face was patient…and so confident that she was tempted to slap him. She doubted he knew the kind of viper he’d sprung from, but maybe he should.

  Maybe she needed him to.

  “I was born in Kemet,” she said, deciding. “My parents were poor and not well liked. I don’t know why, though I once heard someone call them oath breakers. When they died, no one in the village wanted to take me in.”

  Memnon shifted cautiously. “Many who wear a crown have humble origins. How old were you when they died?”

  “Eight or so. Every meal I ate after I was orphaned was charity, and every bite came with an insult or a kick. The wives of Kemet grew more grudging as my years increased. I suppose they feared their husbands might show me mercy of another sort. I had the prettiness that comes to girls around fifteen—not much of it, but enough.”

  “It’s hard for me to imagine you as anything but beautiful.”

  Tou felt compelled to turn her eyes from him. His compliment meant more to her than it should. “Beauty has its uses, but other traits are more valuable. Do you wish to hear the rest?”

  If he heard the dare in her question, he pretended not to. “I do,” he said simply.

  “One day—It was a famine year, as I recall. The tribes of Upper Southland were not organized beneath one ruler then, and those who hadn’t laid up stores did not fare well. Kemet was neither starving nor fat, but her larders were as closed to me as if she hadn’t one grain of wheat to spare. I stole to live that year, whenever I dared, until at last I was caught with my hand upon a loaf of bread.

  “I was dragged to the council tent, where I was given a speedy trial. The sentence was clear enough, and stealing food was a serious crime. Rightfully, the village elders should have cut off my hand, but they were men, and—as their wives had feared—they decided to show mercy. I was to be banished. If I survived, I could start anew. If not…”

  Her voice was steady, but Memnon pressed the fingers she would have lost. “That wasn’t all they did.”

  “No,” she agreed. “It wasn’t. They tied the tent flaps closed—so their wives wouldn’t interrupt, I later realized. Then, to make sure I’d never be tempted to steal again, every one of them raped me. Ten men, all old enough to be my father, taught me a lesson I would not forget.”

  She let out her breath, lifted her gaze to hold Memnon’s. His eyes shone with something stronger than pity—anger, she thought, and maybe even the knowledge that none of this had weakened her. Part of her was reluctant to tell the rest, but in truth, the rest was the only part that mattered.

  “Your father watched them do it.”

  He flinched, a small, sharp movement, but a telling one. His hand drew back from holding hers. “My father.”

  “They called him the King’s Justice then. He was touring the province for your grandsire. When the other men finished, Ravna sent them away. He helped me sit up, gave me a drink of water, even wiped my tears on his royal cloak. I was in shock, but I thought he would help me. He was young, and a prince, both of which I thought meant something. I lost my naïveté when he began taking me himself.”

  “My father raped you.” His voice was rough with his reluctance to believe and his dread that it was true.

  “There was no mistaking it.” She twisted her mouth at the mem
ory. “When I realized what he meant to do, I fought him hardest of all. He claimed he couldn’t help himself. Mewled that it was my fault. I hear he calls me witch-whore after all these years. The encounter must have been memorable for him.”

  “Perhaps he secretly regrets it.”

  Tou had to laugh, if only bitterly. “I expect he most regrets I didn’t die in my trek across the Vharzovhin.”

  “The gods had—” Memnon swallowed and began again. “The gods had touched him by then. If his needs were heightened as ours are now…”

  “Have you ever raped a woman, Memnon? Ever hurt one physically?”

  She had spoken softly, but he stiffened. “Of course I haven’t.”

  “And are your needs less than his? Could they ever drive you to force yourself on anyone?”

  She knew she’d made a mockery of his argument. He wagged his head, trying perhaps to shake out the point she’d made. When that failed, he stood and paced away from her.

  “You are right,” he said, finally stopping. “There is no excuse for what he did to you. I told myself that side of my father’s life wasn’t my business. If he treated women callously, I told myself—But such things aren’t right, even if done by a god-touched king.” He looked at her, his expression tightly controlled. “I will leave. You cannot find it a pleasure to be with his son.”

  “Can’t I?” she murmured to them both. Then she shook her head almost as he’d done. Her pleasure in his company changed nothing. “Your father will fall before me. Not because I hate him, or because it would be just, but because these people I have pulled together beneath my rule have made me stronger than he is. Southland will be united, and it will be united under me. That is my destiny.”

  He nodded. “I can see you believe that.”

  “It is not a belief, Memnon. It is what I know. The question is, whose side will you stand on when that day comes?”